Hi Michael, with great interest I was reading your thoughts about DOS.
Let me add from my personal experience: The tech gap between DOS (FREEDOS) and WINDOWS/MAC honestly made me going back and forth between those OS options. I tried to make up my mind in the following way: What do I get from working on DOS? The answer in one word: SIMPLICITY I know: computers are complicated and complex by »nature«. But there is a level of accessibility which is till ok. It still »feels« simple. SIMPLICITY for me encompasses also »quiteness of mind« in the sense, that I don’t want to deal anymore with all those forced »updates« of OS and software. Plain »no«. Why? Because: I am only writing texts (prose), and I don’t want to deal with tech problems and feel plain stupid on a regular basis when those »updates« come in again. (Please bare with me, I am German native speaker) Writing text has been included in Computers maybe in the 1970ies or so… It isn’t what computers were invented for, we must not forget this. Since then, ALL POSSIBLE PROBLEMS of text authoring have been solved! This is why I immensely appreciate the FREEDOS project (Jim Hall ed.al thank you!) to adopt the DOS simplicity to some lightly modern compatibility (call it »USB«), I would say. Simplicity is to not have literally thousands of files somewhere digged into vast spaces of GIGA and TERA bytes of storage on my harddisk without have the faintest idea about that huge digital landfill. I don’t use a harddisk. I use one USB Stick per project, each one has the basic KERNEL and AUTEXEC.BAT on it, and each USB Stick has a different color and some description. My computer even does not start without a stick (!) Writing (drafting) is done with the »e 1.4« text editor of 7 kB (Yes: seven Kilobyte) by David Nye, MD, 1991 (!) ( see: https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?action=browse&diff=1&id=E.Com&diffrevision=5 ) Revisioning is done with the excellent VDE Editor v197 (sic!), by Eric Meyer. Brillant piece of software! Never fails, no bugs, no crashes, no updates. With a version number that high, 197, am sure, problems have been sorted out a long time ago. And regarding USB/BIOS...: I use all sorts of Keyboards and Touchpads, Trackpads, a Foot-Pedal and I built my own keyboard, just to advance more on the ergonomic side which was neglected in the industry in order to please everybody on the consumer side. It is not the computer or the software that writes my texts, yes, true, but - - I found out that it is the modern OS (internet, cloud, ordinary office task, email, notifications etc etc) which interrupts, distracts and impedes my writing. My approach is not about nostalgia or an outlandish freak’n nerdism, but my refusing of the unnecessary. Basic take away: Computers should be much more specifically built to what they are used for. This »single task« metaphore is my motto. Why not re-read: "Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays« (1973 by E. F. Schumacher) Thomas > On 27.02.2024, at 01:11, Michael Brutman via Freedos-user > <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > I'm just kind of amazed at what I read here at times. > > It is no secret that DOS is no longer a mainstream operating system. As a > result, support for it on physical hardware is minimal, if it is supported at > all. Modern machines are just not intended to be used with DOS as the > primary, "bare metal" operating system. > > A lot of us are here because we like DOS but most of us don't try to > force-fit into places where it doesn't work. When there is a better, > supported solution for something it often makes more sense to use that > instead of trying to make it work under DOS. There are many examples of > things where DOS is great and even fun, but many more examples where DOS is > not a suitable solution. > > This isn't controversial or hostile. It is reality. > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
